Roman Polanski: 5 Things You Didn't Know

One of the great directors in the history of cinema, Roman Polanski is an undisputed master of psychologically troubling films that bring on nightmares, from his early work such as 1962's Knife in the Water to the utterly demonic Rosemary's Baby to the staggering drama of Death and the Maiden. His personal life — which includes running from Nazis, losing a wife and unborn child to murder and facing serious legal problems — has been as much of a wrenching drama as any of his films.

Most recently, Polanski was in the midst of wrapping up Ghost, a thriller featuring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan scheduled for release in 2010, when on September 26, 2009, he went to Zurich to accept the Golden Icon Award from the Zurich Film Festival. He was detained in Zurich by Swiss authorities on an outstanding 1978 U.S. warrant for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old American aspiring model. Authorities from France and Poland, as well as many of Polanski's directorial peers, have pressed for his release — at least on bail — arguing their case all the way up to the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

As his fate hangs in the balance, we present five things you didn't know about Roman Polanski.

The first thing you didn't know about Roman Polanski is that the crime that got him in so much trouble occurred in one of Hollywood's most famous homes.

Roman Polanski's legal troubles in the U.S. began in 1977, during the second of two photo shoots involving 13-year-old Samantha Geimer, an aspiring model who was to appear in the French edition of Vogue for men, for which Polanski had been asked to serve as guest editor. The two had already shot one day's worth of film — during which, according to Geimer, Polanski had asked the girl to change into another outfit in front of him — and were finishing up the second day's shoot, which was taking place at the Mulholland Drive home of Jack Nicholson, next door to Marlon Brando. Polanski sexually assaulted Geimer at Nicholson’s home, and that crime kept him out of the U.S. for the next three decades.

2- Roman Polanski directed four Oscar-nominated performances

Although Roman Polanski has a reputation for being a diminutive, even Napoleonic director on the set (he is believed to be no taller than 5' 5"), the bottom line is that he gets the most out of his actors. He has directed four actors in performances that have earned them Oscar nominations: Ruth Gordon (Rosemary's Baby), Jack Nicholson (Chinatown), Faye Dunaway (Chinatown), and Adrien Brody (The Pianist).

Of the four, only Gordon and Brody actually won the Academy Award.

3- Roman Polanski escaped being sent to Auschwitz

Another thing you didn't know about Roman Polanski is how close he came to being killed — twice.

Born in Paris in 1933, Roman Polanski was just three years old when his family moved to Krakow in Poland and eventually found themselves imprisoned in the infamous Krakow ghetto, where the Nazis had herded thousands upon thousands of the city's population prior to sending them to concentration camps (Polanski brought much of the horror of the Krakow ghetto to life in his renowned 2002 film The Pianist). His father, who encouraged his young son to escape the ghetto through some cut wires before the Nazis began clearing it out, survived his time in the camps, but not his mother; she died at Auschwitz.

Later, when Charles Manson dictated to his “family” that they should enter the home on 10050 Cielo Drive in the Hollywood Hills and murder everyone inside, they found Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate (who was eight months pregnant) and four others and proceeded to viciously murder them all. Polanski was in London at the time and he has called his absence from the house that night one of the biggest regrets of his life.